University of Manchester

The course explores everyday relationships and their sociological significance for contemporary debates on family, personal life, and kinship; as well as illuminating the importance of relationships in all aspects of everyday life,  provides theoretical frameworks and empirical materials to allow students to explore for themselves how personal relationships are played out through all aspects of everyday life, and explore and critique different relationships through different institutions and practices.

The course analyzes the political and policy-making processes in contemporary Greece, Italy, and Spain. The study of the three countries is placed into a strong comparative perspective with particular attention focusing on (a) the common historical traits that shaped their political culture and development, (b) the similarities and contrasts of their political institutions and policy-making processes, (c) the nature of party political competition, (d) the impact of EU membership on their political systems and on their political economy, and (e) their foreign policy orientation. 

This course is for absolute beginners. This course introduces students to the fundamentals of German grammar, reading, and writing while developing some basic communicative skills. This course teaches students simple structures, lexis and phrases which enables them to communicate in a limited number of common everyday situations in German-speaking countries.

This course serves as a starting point to develop an engineer’s ability to select a material based on cost and performance, understand limitations and how properties change in service and the ability to critically assess new materials for a given application. Furthermore, this course provides an introduction to materials engineering and materials science. It also introduces the primary classes of materials, and to develop an understanding of types of interatomic, crystal, and molecular bonding in engineering materials and their influence on mechanical properties. Students develop an understanding of the modes of failure for different classes of materials. This course introduces brittle fracture, and to develop an understanding of the ways in which a flaw within a material can influence its response to loading.

The course covers analyzing market demand; factors affecting firms; cost, profit analysis, pricing, competition in various kinds of market structure, strategic behavior, firm growth (mergers and acquisitions); the impact of governments on company policies; interpreting economic data; and the macroeconomic environment.  In analyzing all these topics, the course relies heavily on, and where practical, current examples and case studies, rather than mathematical modelling. 

This course begins by exploring the intellectual interventions and traditions that have emerged in the anthropology in and of Britain over the last 50 years, and then swiftly moves into exploring the ways in which interdisciplinary ethnographic research has been conducted across Britain. While reading ethnographies in cross cultural, global contexts, in this course students place a particular emphasis on the urban context of Greater Manchester. Students explore ethnographies that have been based on ethnographic research across Greater Manchester, and which raise and address urgent questions of social, political, and economic change in Manchester and beyond. The course tackles the concept of "the urban’" by exploring ethnographic examples from anthropology, sociology, human geography, and business studies that focus on social and cultural lives and relations. Students take two fieldtrips (Cheetham’s Library and Manchester Airport) and two walking tours (Fallowfield and Rusholme) to visit and reflect on the ethnographic locations of the materials and readings they engage with. 

This course is intended to introduce students having no previous experience of project investment appraisal to the ways in which such investments can be analyzed. Students who wish to enter the business world, either working for companies or for themselves, are required to conduct formal assessments of a proposed project (or business) and present these to decision-makers. The course equips students to conduct such analyses, by describing a case study (chosen by the student), modelling it using formal techniques and indicators, and to present the results in a well-structured document. In the past a variety of projects have been examined, including sports centers, restaurants, new products, renewable energy schemes, an escort agency, theme park, retail businesses, driving school, hotels and hostels, a company take- over, etc. 

The course develops students’ understanding of key marketing terminology and conceptual frameworks; provides students with an understanding of the role marketing plays in businesses and not-for-profit organizations and its importance for individuals within a society; provides students with: a) an understanding of buyer behavior and b) a skill to apply this knowledge for building firms’ competitive advantage; develops students’ understanding of how different organizations develop their marketing mix strategies while also paying attention to quality, ethical behavior, and social responsibility; and develops students’ knowledge of marketing tools and procedures used to analyze a variety of business situations.